The smuggling cartels are making $32 million a week for bringing illegal immigrants into just one 245-mile stretch of the border, according to congressional Republicans who are on a tour of the southern boundary Wednesday.
The House Judiciary Committee posted the eye-popping figure on social media platform X, saying the estimate came from the Border Patrol.
“$32,000,000. PER WEEK,” the committee said.
The area in question is the Del Rio sector of the border, one of nine Border Patrol sectors along the boundary with Mexico. Del Rio had been a fairly quiet stretch of the border until the start of the Biden administration.
The Judiciary Committee did not say how the Border Patrol arrived at the estimate, but Del Rio averaged a little more than 10,000 migrants a week in November, the latest month for which Homeland Security has released full records. That works out to about $3,200 per migrant, or nearly $1.7 billion a year from that one sector.
The Washington Times’ database of smuggling cases shows a wide range of prices paid by illegal immigrants, ranging from several hundred dollars per person for those who come in large caravans to $20,000 for migrants who get brought in by Jet Ski in southern California.
Those from Mexico usually pay the least, those from Central America pay more and those from further afield pay the most. Cartels also adjust their prices based on the ease of the route and the chances of success.
In late December, single Mexican migrants were paying about $10,000 a person in the Laredo area, which is slightly south of the Del Rio sector. That price covered entry and transport beyond Border Patrol checkpoints.
What’s not clear is how much of the money actually goes to the cartel and how much stays with the drivers, stash house operators and foot guides who do the actual shepherding and coordinating, They can earn up to $1,500 for every person driven through a highway checkpoint, or several hundred dollars for walking or rafting people across the border itself.
The cartels, however, usually take a cut off the top. That money goes to pay for using the cartels’ smuggling routes.
The Washington Times estimated in 2022 that the border smuggling economy topped $20 billion annually, with at least $2.6 billion of that going specifically to cartel crossing fees.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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